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Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Zombie Killer Squad is a newly release IOS game. It's a free game found in the App store. I found out about it because of SeaNanners, and Syndicate, a couple of entertaining commentators, that post game play on YouTube.

The game play for Zombie Killer Squad is pretty simple, you have to go through different obstacles which are zombies, go around metal shipping containers, go up ramps, or under other structures in the road. The point of the game is to collect as many of these coins as possible while trying to survive as long as possible. The concept makes it sound easy, but it's a tougher game than you'd expect. You have to swipe left or right to dodge any obstacles, you can also jump over zombies instead of shooting them by swiping up, and if you need to, you can swipe down to go under certain structures.

Before I go on talking about certain perks you can get, you can play as three different characters. You start off with Luke unlocked, with Luke you get a mount you can use. His mount is a mule, or donkey. It's actually quite entertaining shooting zombies while riding a donkey. There are two more characters you can play as that are locked, you can either collect 100,000 coins to unlock each of them, or pay $.99 to unlock them ahead of time. They are SeaNanners, and Syndicate from YouTube. If you play as SeaNanners, you can ride a cat as your mount, and Syndicate rides a motorcycle. I downloaded this game just for the chance to play as these two characters. One point I'd like to say about needing to unlock these other two characters is that they don't force you to pay extra to play as them. The game actually allows you to work towards unlocking them instead. It drives me crazy when you download a free game and then to get anything worth while to use in the game, you have to end up paying extra, and a lot of times it's more than just $.99 to get them.

While you're going through the game you get to run into different perks. The first one I noticed was the magnetic perk, if you pick this up, for a limited of time all the coins and some additional items get picked up by your character. The next perk I found was the Bull Mount. The Bull lets you ride through anything. Basically if you happen to pick it up, you ride a bull for a limited time, and nothing can stop you, you just take all obstacles out that are in your way. The last perk is the flight perk. It has you ride a bird over everything and you can still pick up coins that are in the air for a limited time, just like everything else. You can spend coins to extend the duration of these different perks/mounts, and to buy more ammo, ect...

Overall I really enjoy playing this game, whenever I have a little bit of free time, I pull my iPhone out and play a round or two, at least. I have to give Zombie Killer Squad a 5 out of 5. It has everything I would expect from an IOS game, and more. Remember it's FREE, and you can find it in the apps store.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

State of Emergency is a small film I discovered on Netflix. Actually it was more suggested to me because I happened to be re-watching the first season of AMC's The Walking Dead on Netflix, but that has nothing to do with this post.

State of Emergency follows Jim, the main character, after a chemical facility explodes which releases a deadly toxin into the air. This toxin causes people to turn into flesh eating zombies. These aren't your traditional George A. Romero zombies, these are more like the 28 days later zombies, where they run. Another difference is that these ones can talk in State of Emergency. Personally I wouldn't call them zombies, they don't even seem like they are undead. Continuing on with the plot of the film, Jim find out others are holding up in a warehouse, and he joins them. He meets what could potentially be a love interest, but she's passed out for half the film.

After watching the film I felt like I hadn't learned anything, nor did I feel any connection to any of the characters. It felt like a film made to be a film, where there isn't anything wrong with that, but it also didn't keep me captivated. I found myself constantly waiting for something big to happen, but that never came. The major plot point that I thought would bring at least some sort of on the edge of your seat suspense, and possible action, didn't go in that direction. The possible love interest for the main character is apparently diabetic. He finds out that she needs insulin or she's going to die. The characters talk about a pharmacy at the other end of town, but conveniently enough there happens to be some in an air drop near by. When Jim went out to the air drop container, I didn't even feel slightly worried. He ran into only one "zombie" which he shot in the leg first which made it fall, then he slowly walked up to it and shot it in the head. They did make me think for a second, "yes, he's going to have to go into town anyway", when Jim couldn't fine it at first, but as you know now, that didn't happen.

Overall I give state of emergency a 1 out of 5. There were certain minor aspects, and shots I did like, but nothing big enough that's worth mentioning. I also wasn't able to connect to the movie enough to care about the characters. It lost points in my opinion for referring to the chemically intoxicated crazy people as zombies in the description. They may have been undead, but zombies don't talk, nor do they run.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Over the weekend I had a chance to see a less known movie named Defendor. Yes, that's the correct spelling, it's Defendor, not Defender. Even in the movie the main character corrects others on how to say it.

Defendor is about a normal average every day guy by the name of Arthur Poppington, also know as Defendor by night, played by Woody Harrelson (know for his role in Zombieland), who goes out on patrol at night protecting people from the criminal "punks". His goal is to take down "Captain Industry", who's supposed to be head of the city's biggest criminal ring. Defendor has no super powers, just is trench club, marbles, angry wasps, and above all else his courage.

At first the flick felt like it was going to be this director's version of Kick-Ass, and depending on your perspective, it could be looked at in that way. They both came out about the same time frame, Defendor in 2009, and Kick-Ass in 2010. Also Kick-Ass did come out as a comic book first. In my personal opinion, I'm going to give it a pass one reason, who hasn't come up with their own "Batman" like hero, and wanted to actually go and fight crime when we were kids? Especially those of us who enjoy reading comics.

Defendor is a dark comedy, a side of heart. It actually did make me laugh quite a few times while watching it. One of my favorite moments, is when Arthur shows up to work bruised and beaten, and his friend asked him who did it to him. Arthur tells him he fell down stairs, and his friend proceeds to push him asking who did it, and what did they look like, Arthur then proceeded to draw the shape of stairs in the air. I ended up liking the main character Arthur as a person. He made me feel like he truly did care about the people in his life, and the citizens of the city. He's quite likable. There were certain aspects of the flick that I felt didn't really need to be explained, the best example of this is when Arthur's psychiatrist explains to him why people in his life love him so much. Woody Harrelson, and the rest of the cast portrayed this well enough where I didn't need it to be explained to me. A cool little note to add, the actor who played Casey Jones (Elias Koteas) in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles plays a dirty cop in it.

Overall, I give Defendor, a 3 out of 5. That's how I rate a pretty average movie. It wasn't mind blowing, and it isn't the most memorable film. But I did enjoy watching it, laughing with it, and I enjoyed the progression story. It's worth a view at the very least.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

It looks like Blockbuster will be closing it's doors in January 2014, as well it's DVD mail distribution. This is some rough news, especially for those who still like to go rent physical movies instead of using digital distribution such as Netflix. According to DISH, they will be retaining the licensing rights, for possible digital distribution. Places like Blockbuster, and especially the local video rental places, have a special place in my heart. Growing up there were three places my father used to take me, that have always felt like a constant in my life, going to the movie theater, going to hockey games, and going to the video rental store.

Now that Blockbuster is officially closing it's doors, this marks a true end to the experience of walking in and seeing wall to wall movies to choose from. Some of you may be too young to really remember the local movie rental stores, those usually went out of business because of the Blockbusters, and other big movie rental places out there. I can't remember how many times I'd force my dad to rent movies like The Goonies, and Star Wars, at our local movie rental store. Those are some great memories to have, and we are now at this point in society, our future children wont have that experience.

At an end of an era, I give a toast to the good old movie rental store, and have a drink for them.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

I've been talking a lot about zombies in my past few posts so I thought it would be a good idea to change the pace of things, and write a review on another zombie based game, Earn To Die. I actually discovered this gave because one of my buddies was playing an web based version of it online.I started with that, and it was fun enough for me to actually find the Earn To Die mobile game for iPhone.

Earn to Die was developed by Toffee Games, and published by notDOPPLER. The whole premise of the game is to modify your vehicle and get as far as possible through hordes of zombies. The farther you go, the more money you get to modify your vehicle. Different mods help you get farther in different ways. You can buy more gas, add spikes to your bumper to make it easier to get through zombies, to adding a jet engine to give you speed boosts. As you play through the game, you also get to purchase bigger better, and faster vehicles, which you can also modify.

After you get through every level of Earn To Die, you open up two other sections to the mobile app. There is a Halloween play through, where you drive through each level, and you try to destroy all the pumpkins placed on the map. The other section has you do speed runs through different levels using a specific vehicle, but any of the mods you want to you within a specific price range, and you can try to beat records anyone else has gotten online.

Overall Earn To Die, is a fun game to play, when you have a little bit of time here, or there. It does lend itself to some replay value with the new sections that open up, especially for those who enjoy the competitive edge to a game. I give it a 3.5 out of 5. For those who'd like to see a trailer to the game here's the video below.